Windows Live Movie Maker, appropriately codenamed “Sundance”, is a video creating/editing program that is a part of Microsoft’s Windows Live package (http://download.live.com). It is intended to replace Windows Movie Maker that is currently included in Windows Xp and Vista, so expect it to be the default Windows 7 movie editing program.
According to LiveSide.net, Windows Live Movie Maker is a complete rewrite of the Windows Movie Maker application, focusing on the needs of Windows Live Photo Gallery users.
Once you get the software installed, open it up and use the add button to add your raw video files. You should see the video’s thumbnail appear on the right hand side of the window. You can add more than one video so you can mix multiple videos into one.
Creating and editing movies with Windows Live Movie Maker
Once a video is added you can add visual effects like transitions and color effects.
Creating and editing movies with Windows Live Movie Maker
The Edit menu on the other hand will let you add text watermarks to the video.
Creating and editing movies with Windows Live Movie Maker
You can also mute the audio and replace it with another audio file. To do that, go to Edit then click “mute”.
Creating and editing movies with Windows Live Movie Maker
Then go back to Home then add a background music.
Creating and editing movies with Windows Live Movie Maker
Once you are satisfied with the changes you can import or publish the movie by clicking either of the the two buttons.
Creating and editing movies with Windows Live Movie Maker
Publishing will put your movie file on the web while Output will create a movie in native WMV format. You can choose from either standard definition 640X480 (DVD quality) or smaller 320X240 for portable devices that support WMV.
Creating and editing movies with Windows Live Movie Maker
Since it is in beta and intends to target only the basic video editing market, it doesn’t have features like in other expensive movie editing tools like Sony Vegas and Adobe Premier. For it’s free tag-price and basic set of editing capabilities, I suppose it is an OK freeware. If it had a frame by frame view and more effects in it’s toolbox, it would have been a great tool.
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